Marseille hospitals could soon be overwhelmed

The Marseille hospital system is still put to the test. What worries caregivers is the saturation of intensive care services. “In fact, the sick, they don’t care because they don’t stay 24 hours. They stay three weeks on average and in specialized intensive care units like us, it’s even much more than that “, explains doctor Laurent Papazian, chief doctor for the coordination of resuscitation services in the PACA region. According to figures from theAPHM, at the hospital of the Timone, 100% intensive care beds are occupied by unvaccinated people. In all Marseille hospitals, these are 86% intensive care beds that are occupied by unvaccinated people.

The Bouches-du-Rhône department is one of the new French departments where the vaccination rate does not exceed the 85%. As of December 30, 2021, 82.7% adults were fully vaccinated according to data figures.gouv.fr. The incidence rate in the department is 1,694 cases per week per 100,000 inhabitants. At the end of December, in the four arrondissements of the northern districts of Marseille, the share of the population with two doses of vaccine was of 30% below the national average.